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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24854206">Our Bravery Wasted</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagus_writes/pseuds/asparagus_writes'>asparagus_writes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Our Bravery Wasted [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anakin Skywalker Leaves the Jedi Order, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Episode: s05e20 The Wrong Jedi, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, not a charitable portrayal of the Jedi Council</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:34:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,937</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24854206</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagus_writes/pseuds/asparagus_writes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Anakin is not there when the Chancellor announces the death sentence. Padmé tells him later that Ahsoka was very brave in the face of it. She does not tell him that Ahsoka still cried, silent tears, as she was led out of the courtroom.</p><p>AU of The Wrong Jedi where Anakin doesn't find Ventress</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anakin Skywalker &amp; Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Our Bravery Wasted [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1813108</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>421</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title is from Iron and Wine's "Resurrection Fern" but the vibes are "everything i wanted" by Billie Eilish.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anakin is not there when the Chancellor announces the death sentence. Padmé tells him later that Ahsoka was very brave in the face of it. She does not tell him that Ahsoka still cried, silent tears, as she was led out of the courtroom.</p>
<p>Anakin learns about the decision on the holonews, about an hour later, broadcast on a billboard in the underlevels. Ventress has disappeared. Anakin decides that if he ever sees the woman’s face again, he will kill her, no hesitation. Ventress knows this too, and will be careful to never run into him ever again.</p>
<p>Anakin spends the majority of the night still searching for any shred of evidence to prove his padawan’s innocence. At some point they send some of his men to find him. These men know him, and when they see the look on his face, Anakin feels that they are afraid. Of him. At first he thinks: <em>good.</em> At least someone else recognizes that Anakin is powerful, that he isn’t helpless.  </p>
<p>And then, they ask him how they can help. He knows that they were really sent to escort him back to the Jedi Temple, to make sure he doesn’t try anything. But they want to protect Ahsoka—Anakin knows they think it’s their job. They’ve thought so since Christophsis. They’re wrong: it’s his job. And it’s also his job to protect <em>them</em>. Then, Anakin feels sick that he made them afraid.</p>
<p>Anakin pushes down his anger. He doesn’t let go of it, just bottles it up in a place he hopes they can’t see. It would be wrong to stop being angry, he thinks. Ahsoka is innocent. This isn’t <em>right.</em> To let go of his anger would be to deny that fact.</p>
<p>Anakin slips back into the tired role of command—he’s done almost exactly this many times before—and tries to make himself forget that nothing is special about this particular information-gathering, fugitive-hunting mission. They keep going for hours but they don’t find anything. Anakin can tell that the clones are getting tired, but they don’t say anything. <em>She</em> never does either, on missions, but Anakin can usually tell all the same. He thinks they’re surprised though, when he tells them,</p>
<p>“This isn’t working. We should go back. I’ll—I’ll try something else.”</p>
<p>Anakin is maybe a little surprised at himself too. But they’re tired and it’s his job to protect them. And, beating a dead horse won’t do anything for Ahsoka. He’s not so far gone he can’t see that. He wonders when he’ll break. Will it be before or after she’s dead?</p>
<p>They split ways eventually, his mean heading to the GAR barracks, and Anakin supposed to be heading for the Temple. Instead, he goes to Padmé’s apartment.</p>
<p>It’s an ungodly hour when he gets there. His wife should be asleep by now, but she’s not. Anakin barely has time to panic when he steps into the bedroom and registers that their bed is empty before her voice is calling his name from the kitchen.</p>
<p>When he steps into the doorway, he sees piles of datapads and flimsi, and even some thick books strewn across the counters and table. At the center of them all is Padmé, still in the clothing she wore to the courtroom, a forgotten mug of what’s probably caf beside her elbow. He doesn’t say anything for a while—just stands there. She sets aside what she had been reading and examines his face and posture but doesn’t get up from where she’s sitting. He thinks she might be a little afraid of him too.</p>
<p>When he reaches for the anger he knows she’s expecting, he can’t find it. It’s not gone, it’s just changed. Congealed into something cold and helpless and exhausted.</p>
<p>“Padmé,” he says and then can’t say anything else. Her expression changes and then she’s weaving her way across the room, skirting around piles of her research to get to him. She wraps her small frame around his tall one as best she can. Usually Anakin likes that his wife is so much smaller than him—that it’s so easy for him to hold her in his arms—but right now he wishes she could envelop him whole.</p>
<p>“I’m so sorry,” she’s whispering on repeat. It takes him longer than it should to return the embrace. They stay like that—he doesn’t know how long—until she tells him,</p>
<p>“Sit down, Ani,” and guides him to the chair next to the one she was in, scooping up a stack of datapads and depositing them on the floor to make room for his body.</p>
<p>“I want to file a motion for stay of execution,” she says, and Anakin flinches at the word <em>execution</em> even though it’s been running through his subconscious for hours and hours now.</p>
<p>“I’m looking for anything, some kind of rule we could invoke, precedent for overturning the ruling of a military tribunal, an obscure avenue of appeal…”</p>
<p>She trails off, and Anakin knows this means she hasn’t found anything yet. He knows she’s probably been at it for hours, and that she understands this stuff much better than he can. But, he doubts she’s gone through all of this yet, and he did say he was going to find a different way, so Anakin reaches down to grab something off the top of the stack by his feet.</p>
<p>“Anakin, you should sleep,” she tells him.</p>
<p>“So should you,” he says, already scanning the document and its unhelpful legal jargon. Padmé just sighs and says,</p>
<p>“I’ve read that one already.”</p>
<p>She pries it out of his hands and hands him one from another stack instead of arguing with him more.</p>
<p>They spend several more hours like this, occasionally discussing something one of them has read. By the time Dormé comes in to get Padmé ready for the day’s Senate business, they have a list of a few longshot strategies that might at least buy Ahsoka time or the possibility of a lighter sentence. Padmé promises Anakin that she will work on drafting the legal documents necessary during the morning’s session and have them filed by the afternoon. She again tells Anakin he should get some sleep.</p>
<p>He can’t remember the last time he slept. Maybe he has since they came back to Coruscant, but it wasn’t good sleep. He keeps reading, but has almost admitted to himself she’s right, when he gets a message on his commlink. He answers it without checking to see who it is, and it turns out to be Obi Wan.</p>
<p>The anger Anakin has been missing flickers back to life at the sight of his face, which had looked down on him and Ahsoka as she was expelled from the Order.</p>
<p>“Where have you been, Anakin?” his former master asks, but evidently quickly realizes the folly of the question as Anakin summons the energy to open his mouth to give a biting and defensive reply.</p>
<p>“—Nevermind that actually,” he interrupts primly, and Anakin could scream at how unaffected by all of this Obi Wan seems. Ahsoka is (was?) practically his padawan too.</p>
<p>“She wants to speak with you,” Obi Wan tells him. He obviously has assumed correctly that Anakin knows the outcome of the trial by now.</p>
<p>“And <em>now</em> they’re going to let me talk to her, I suppose?” Anakin shoots back.</p>
<p>“Yes Anakin, with an armed guard,”</p>
<p>“What, so I won’t—”</p>
<p>“Don’t tell me you haven’t considered it.”</p>
<p><em>Damn </em>Obi Wan for knowing him so well. And damn him for judging Anakin for wanting to save his padawan from a fate she doesn’t deserve by whatever means necessary. Evidently, Ahsoka had thought that he was trying to help her escape the first time she tried it, but that would have been stupid and counterproductive of him, even he knew that. But now that she was already condemned to death, rescuing Ahsoka from prison was seeming like a better and better idea.</p>
<p>Now though, they’ll really be watching him, to make sure he doesn’t. This will make it infinitely more difficult. Anakin will probably have to kill clones to do it, not to mention get himself into the same kind of hot water Ahsoka is in if they are ever caught. They’d both <em>actually</em> be guilty of a crime, and he would have to leave Padmé behind—maybe forever. He’s made promises to protect both of these women and keeping one could mean breaking the other. Still, Anakin itches to do it. The longer he waits, he knows, the harder it will be.</p>
<p>Even now, there’s a steep possibility it won’t work. He’s only one man. Anakin growls frustratedly.</p>
<p>“I can’t just stand by and let her be killed for something that’s not her fault!”</p>
<p>Obi Wan is silent. Anakin is too angry to notice the uncertainty and guilt that flashes across his master’s face.</p>
<p>“You have no choice, Anakin,” Obi Wan says, his voice still infuriatingly level. Fires blaze in Anakin’s eyes.</p>
<p>“There has to be something else—” he is not sure how to continue. Obi Wan is sympathetically silent.</p>
<p>They remain that way for several beats: Obi Wan’s mask of calm meeting Anakin’s glower.</p>
<p>He hasn’t been able to find any real evidence of her innocence besides Ahsoka’s word, an escape attempt is likely destined to fail, and he knows that Padmé’s legal challenges are iffy at best. Anakin realizes he doesn’t even know how much time they have to make something work.</p>
<p>“When?” Anakin asks, and Obi Wan knows what he means.</p>
<p>“Tomorrow morning.”</p>
<p>Anakin’s eyes widen.</p>
<p>“They can’t!” he protests uselessly before he can stop himself. Anakin might not have been the best student, but he remembers from his criminal justice classes that inmates on Republic death row can sometimes wait for years for their execution date. But this is a norm, not a rule. Evidently, the Republic can move that fast, and it will.</p>
<p>“They’re military courts. They move quickly,” Obi Wan says. Anakin doesn’t know what to say to that. They resume their previous stalemate. Obi Wan breaks the uneasy silence this time.</p>
<p>“You should go speak with her, Anakin. They’ll meet you at entrance C to the detention complex. <em>Don’t</em> try anything. We do not need anyone else to end up in a cell.”</p>
<p>Anakin slumps back in his chair as Obi Wan cuts the transmission. He directs his gaze, desperate and furious, to bore metaphorical holes into Padmé’s ceiling. He doesn’t know how long he spends thinking up plans to infiltrate Ahsoka’s cell and discarding them, each one butting up against an inexorable roadblock that results in him being caught and stopped. What is the <em>point</em> of being a military genius if you can’t even use it to rescue your own padawan?</p>
<p>He tries to use the futile scheming to distract himself from what Obi Wan’s suggestion really has him feeling, which is <em>guilt</em>. He promised Ahsoka he would never let anyone hurt her. How could he face her?</p>
<p>Talking to Ahsoka will be like finding his mom dying in that filthy hut, he thinks. One more person he’s let down, one more person he’s failed to save. He wishes he could have told mom in a thousand different ways how much he missed her, everything he’s become (a failure, now though) and that he loves her and will never stop. Going to say goodbye to Ahsoka will be selfish—done to make himself feel better when there is nothing that should make him feel better. Nothing should soften this blow, not when it’s his fault that he can’t save her.</p>
<p>But Ahsoka is asking for him, and maybe once he’s in the compound and has a chance to talk to her, an idea for a rescue plan will come to him. He carefully does not think about all the consequences that would come from acting on such an idea. If he can’t save Ahsoka, at least he can give her this. Somehow, miraculously, she still wants to see him.</p>
<p>He sends a message, just text, to Padmé on his way to the prison complex, telling her how close Ahsoka’s date with the firing squad is. They need to hurry. Padmé only takes a few minutes to reply, and it’s to tell him that all the paperwork they could think to file in order to stop this has been filed. <em>We just have to wait. </em>She sends. <em>They’re legally required to at least respond one way or another to the requests before it’s time.</em></p>
<p>An entire squad of clone troopers greets him at entrance C. None of them are his own men and he’s not sure whether to be grateful or pissed off at that. The first thing they do is ask him for his lightsaber, and he hesitates. Their hands hover over their blasters, and he knows he wouldn’t get far even if he kept his weapon. He gives it to them, and they later hand it off to a security station. He won’t be able to call it back to him once he gets to Ahsoka. Anakin takes in his surroundings very closely, trying to take note of every turn in the corridor, every blast door and communications panel and security camera. He doesn’t like what he sees.</p>
<p>And then he’s standing outside a ray-shielded cell, and on the other side is Ahsoka, sitting on the ground curled into a ball, her face buried in her knees. She hasn’t even noticed him yet, and Anakin walks right up to the barrier. He is surprised when it shimmers and vanishes. The two clone troopers behind him quickly sweep him into the cell with them. As soon as they’re through, he can feel the barrier come back up.</p>
<p>Ahsoka raises her head and her eyes immediately find Anakin. His heart breaks at the look in them. They’re absent their usual spark of hope and tenacity. The only reason he doesn’t break down crying is because she’s watching him. He should be strong for her, he thinks, and holds onto that thought to keep his composure.</p>
<p>His padawan quickly unfolds herself from her miserable pose and barrels into Anakin. She buries her face into his upper chest, and absurdly the first thing he thinks is that she really has grown taller since the first time they met. And then Anakin is surprised by her embrace, because <em>why doesn’t she blame him</em>? How can she still trust him after all of this?</p>
<p>Anakin wants to collapse for the second time in thirty seconds, but again he doesn’t because she needs him. He wraps his arms around her—tightly to stop them shaking.</p>
<p>“Ahsoka,” he says hoarsely, “this is my fault. I—” Because the selfish part of his heart thinks that if he convinces her to hate him, what’s coming might hurt him less. He can tell that she feels safer with him there, which is stupid because she’s not and he can’t fix this. Anakin knows she’s not going to start hating him. That’s another way he’s failed her. He loves too much, beyond reason, so much it hurts, and he’s taught that to her too.</p>
<p>Ahsoka is shaking her head against his chest.</p>
<p>“No, Master. I know—I know you’ve done everything you could for me.”</p>
<p>Anakin grasps onto the opening that gives him:</p>
<p>“We’ve filed legal challenges, to buy us time, so we can get to the bottom of this. It’s not over yet, Ahsoka,”</p>
<p>“We?”</p>
<p>“Padmé and I,” he says, not even caring if it makes her suspicious of their relationship.</p>
<p>He feels through their bond in the Force that she is disappointed that they, and not the Jedi Order, are the only ones trying to stop this. He doesn’t think he was supposed to be able to tell. They’re both shielding their respective ends of the master-padawan bond heavily, but Anakin has much more experience hiding this sort of thing from other people.</p>
<p>“What if it doesn’t work? What if it does but there’s no evidence?”</p>
<p>“It will,” he lies.</p>
<p>“You can’t know that.”</p>
<p>“Then I’ll be here,” he says, and the Force rings with approval. It’s a foreign sensation—something feeling right—especially in the past few days.</p>
<p>“Promise?” she asks, scared and young.</p>
<p>Anakin flinches, not because he’s unwilling to do or give anything for this girl, but because he has broken every promise he has made in his life so far, except the vows he made to Padmé on Naboo.</p>
<p>One of the clones clears his throat, and Anakin realizes that of course they will not let him be there when she dies. The universe has been unbearably cruel to them so far and this will be no different.</p>
<p>Anakin pulls back so he can kneel on the cold durasteel floor in front of her. He takes her face into his hands, more gently than he should be capable of given the strength of his swirling emotions, and stares into her round eyes. Tears are running down her cheeks. She looks very young indeed. He hates that he has to give her this hollow answer.</p>
<p>“I’ll be here,” he says, brushing one hand over her forehead, “and here.” He carefully taps above her heart with his other hand.</p>
<p>He can tell she wants to believe him. But how should she, he realizes, when he is hiding almost everything about himself from her behind thick mental shields? She will barely be able to feel him right now, when they are close enough to feel each other’s breath.</p>
<p>In a show of control Anakin would not have thought himself capable of, he shoves all of his despair and anger and grief deeper down, under another layer of shields, so that all that is left is his burning love for the girl in front of him. Then, he pushes that feeling towards her through their bond.</p>
<p>“You are the best Padawan I could have ever asked for, little one,” he says. And then, even though he shouldn’t,</p>
<p>“I love you.”</p>
<p>Ahsoka sniffs and her eyes widen. Where the rest of his feelings are locked tight, Anakin feels his hatred for the Jedi grow, because this should not be a surprise to her and he should have let himself say it before now.</p>
<p>“But—you didn’t even want me,” Ahsoka protests.</p>
<p>Force, how did he manage to mess things up so badly? Were they doomed to this from the moment he pushed away the girl he’s not sure he can live without?</p>
<p>“Even Masters can be stupid. Especially me,” he says. Ahsoka doesn’t laugh and she doesn’t tease like she would were he to say something like this on an ordinary mission. Her hands, where they rest on his shoulders, pick at the threads in his tunic and she looks down and away from him.</p>
<p>“Well, don’t do anything else stupid, Master,” she says, “not when I can’t watch your back.” She could mean any number of things, but he knows this is about breaking her out. She is trying to protect him, more willing to die than to get him into serious trouble. This is wrong, this is all wrong. He doesn’t want to agree with her, but he doesn’t want to disagree and give her false hope either.</p>
<p>“Ahsoka…”</p>
<p>“I’m scared,” she whispers.</p>
<p>What is he supposed to say to that? She has every reason to be scared. He is scared too. He doesn’t even want to tell her to trust in the Force, because trusting the Force led them here. But he has to say something.</p>
<p>“I know—I know it feels like you’re alone, but you’re not.”</p>
<p>Every time in his life he has been truly, truly afraid, he has been alone. Maybe it is the same for her.</p>
<p>“You are a child of the Force, Ahsoka.” <em>And as good as mine, too</em>, he doesn’t say.</p>
<p>Maybe this is true about the Force, and maybe it is not. This is what they have been raised to believe, especially her, and maybe the familiarity of the sentiment will at least be comforting.</p>
<p>She nods but doesn’t say anything. Anakin still feels her fear, but hopefully it is not as overwhelming now. He might just be imagining a difference.</p>
<p>One of the clones behind them clears his throat again. Anakin has overstayed his welcome. He tries to study Ahsoka’s face and commit every inch of it to memory. Then, he pulls his apprentice into his arms again, resting his ungloved hand on the back of her lek. He will not forget how this feels, both the good and certainly not the bad, not ever.</p>
<p>The clones take a warning step towards them, so he lets go of Ahsoka and stands up. It might be the hardest thing he has ever done. When he turns to leave, he feels an almost physical pull to go back to her.</p>
<p>Right after he passes through the doorway, in the space of the seconds before the ray shield turns back on, he hears her voice clear in his mind: <em>I love you too</em>.</p>
<p>As soon as they turn the corner out of her detention block, Anakin stops in his tracks. He bends double and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. The clones surrounding him shift uneasily. Anakin tries not to make a sound as he cries but he’s not sure he manages it. After not nearly as long as he would like, Anakin forces himself to straighten and keep walking, leaving Ahsoka behind.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A gunship takes them back to the Jedi Temple. Anakin steps in and grabs one of the overhead handholds on pure reflex. He doesn’t even register where they might be going until they get there and Obi Wan is waiting for him. Anakin doesn’t say anything, feeling utterly drained. He walks right past his former master without acknowledging him and Obi Wan falls into step behind him. They’ve given him his lightsaber back at some point and he feels it swinging at his hip as he walks. He almost starts going to the training salles, to find some practice droids to utterly destroy. The ball of negative emotion at his center is full to bursting, and usually when he feels like that, he turns to lightsaber training.</p><p>He decides not to though. It feels wrong to do so, not in a place where he and Ahsoka have spent so much time. Going there right now would just spoil happy memories of her. Anakin heads to his quarters instead, which he rarely uses. He and Obi Wan still share the apartment they did when they were master and padawan. Because of the war, none of their lineage have reshuffled—they’re not here often enough for moving to be worth the effort. If Obi Wan is surprised at his choice, he can’t tell. Obi Wan doesn’t say anything to him, and Anakin is grateful.</p><p>The door to their quarters slides open, and Anakin flings himself down on the first piece of furniture he can find, which happens to be an armchair. Obi Wan folds himself onto a meditation cushion and looks at Anakin, expectantly. Anakin doesn’t look back, choosing to stare angrily at the wall instead. He is not sure if he should release his emotions—yell and rage and destroy things—or hold on to them and just be like this forever, feeling for Ahsoka when no one else will.</p><p>He stays there like that for a very long time, trying to decide. He thinks Obi Wan might be meditating. Ahsoka’s friend Barriss Offee comes to the door at one point to ask after her. Obi Wan answers the door and Anakin doesn’t move, even when Obi Wan looks back at him, clearly expecting him to say or do something. Anakin has started crying again at some point, or maybe he never really stopped. He doesn’t even care that Barriss can probably see the tears on his cheeks.</p><p>When the mirialan padawan leaves, she is upset—so upset that even Anakin can feel it over his own emotional mess.</p><p>Obi Wan goes to stand next to him when she is gone. He hesitantly starts to put a hand on top of Anakin’s head, but Anakin jerks away before he can make contact. Obi Wan drops his hand back to his side.</p><p>“At some point… before…” Obi Wan starts, “you will need to sever your bond… so that you do not…”</p><p>Anakin knows what Obi Wan is trying to tell him he must do. The sudden and unexpected death of one member of a master-padawan bond has the potential to do great psychic violence to the other half. It has killed Jedi or left them comatose or insane. For most though, it just hurts a lot for a while. It was this way for Obi Wan, who is asking Anakin to instead sever his bond with Ahsoka voluntarily and peacefully. He wants to spare Anakin pain and the risk of something worse. But Anakin is kriffing tired of being told he must do difficult, terrible, and cruel things to his apprentice. He finally makes the decision about what to do with his emotions.</p><p>Anakin springs from his seated position, and he is so angry that it makes him dizzy. Or maybe it’s because he hasn’t slept. Obi Wan makes an aborted motion to grab for him when he sways, but Anakin’s nostrils flare and he steps away.</p><p>“There is no way in <em>hell</em> I would abandon her like that,” he spits.</p><p>“Anakin, it will not do anyone any good to put yourself at risk—”</p><p>“How about Ahsoka, hmm? What about her? She already knows everyone else has abandoned her! And I can’t even be there when she—"</p><p>“Anakin, we need you to be—”</p><p>“Oh, what, Obi Wan? You need me? The Jedi need me? The Republic needs me to keep fighting the war? Maybe you all should have thought about that before you condemned my innocent padawan to die!”</p><p>“This is not about you, Anakin!” Obi Wan admonishes, yelling a bit now too.</p><p>“Isn’t it? Can you honestly tell me that Barriss and Luminara would be treated this way? This is my fault! You won’t trust her because of me!”</p><p>“That’s not true, the evidence against Ahsoka—”</p><p>He hears the sound of drinking glasses shattering in the cupboard. That’s probably his fault.</p><p>“The <em>evidence</em> against Ahsoka, huh? None of it directly traces back to her, nobody’s <em>proven </em>anything. We weren’t even on Coruscant! And if anyone bothered to look at her in the Force, they’d be able to tell she couldn’t have done it!”</p><p>“Your judgement is clouded, Anakin—”</p><p>“And yours isn’t?”</p><p>“<em>I’m</em> not—”</p><p>“No, you know what, Obi Wan, you’re right! You’re <em>not</em> the one who just had to figure out what to say to a sixteen-year-old kid when she told you she’s scared of being executed!”</p><p>Obi Wan at least looks stricken at that, but he ruins whatever sympathy it might have gained him with what comes out of his mouth next.</p><p>“There is no death, there is the Force—”</p><p>“The Force?!” Anakin explodes, “Why should she—why should any of us—believe the Force is anything but callous and terrible, if <em>this</em> is its will?”</p><p>“Anakin—” Obi Wan says, taken aback. What he’s said is almost heresy.</p><p>There’s a knock on the door in the stunned silence that follows. Anakin realizes that Obi Wan’s commlink has been going off too. For the second time that day, Obi Wan goes to answer the door while Anakin stays where he is. He feels so lightheaded, he thinks his anger and frustration must be the only things keeping him from falling over. But without Obi Wan’s attention on him, without anyplace to direct his feelings, Anakin is fading fast.</p><p>Rex and Cody are out in the hallway. Anakin wonders how much they heard. He catches them saying something about a council meeting, and then Anakin is watching Obi Wan collect his comm and his robe from the meditation cushion. His eyes follow his former master, who pauses in the doorway.</p><p>“Anakin—” he repeats, sounding like he does when he is about to deliver advice, but for once he doesn’t continue.</p><p>“You have to do something, Obi Wan,” Anakin pleads, because all he is left with at this point is desperation.  Obi Wan just presses his lips together and turns to leave. As the door closes, Anakin collapses back into the chair like a puppet with his strings cut, white-faced. He knows Rex is watching him as they leave. Rex has seen him look worse, probably.</p><p>Anakin buries his head in his hands, pulling at the roots of his hair just to feel the pain. He doesn’t know if he passes out after that or if he is just too strung out to form any coherent thoughts. The next thing he knows, someone is at the door again. There is no one else here to let them in, so Anakin is just planning on letting whoever it is give up and leave. But then the person lets themselves in, and soon Anakin is staring at clone boots on the floor in front of him. He looks up and sees that they belong to Kix, who is carrying his helmet in one hand and a med kit in the other.</p><p>“General,” he greets.</p><p>“Kix, what are you doing here?” Anakin says.</p><p>“You don’t look so good,” Kix says instead of answering Anakin directly, which means that Rex probably sent him and he doesn’t want to throw his captain under the bus.</p><p>When people say this sort of thing to him, Anakin usually responds with a sarcastic <em>thanks</em>, but he can’t even bring himself to do that. He just shrugs. Kix narrows his eyes and kneels down in front of Anakin’s chair, which he does not appreciate. He doesn’t need to be coddled. Anakin makes to push himself out of the chair, so that Kix will have to move, but the medic pushes him down by his shoulders.</p><p>“If you try to stand up you might just fall over,” Kix admonishes, “when was the last time you ate or slept?”</p><p>Anakin doesn’t have a good answer for him.</p><p>“I don’t know, sometime before…”</p><p>“Not recently enough, then” says Kix. He produces a ration bar from somewhere and offers it to Anakin, who just stares at it. He’s not hungry. His brows furrow,</p><p>“I can’t.”</p><p>Kix sighs. “I’ve heard that you’ve eaten live bugs before. A ration bar can’t be much worse,” which isn’t the problem and both of them know it. Anakin takes the bar but doesn’t open the packaging.</p><p>“What do the men know?” He asks instead.</p><p>“I’m not going to say anything until you start eating, General.”</p><p>Anakin waits a few more moments before he mechanically opens the package. He takes a numb bite of the bar, which tastes like nothing, and Kix starts talking while he chews it slowly.</p><p>“We saw the end of it on the news,” he says. Anakin swallows with difficulty.</p><p>“They’re going to do it tomorrow,” he says. Kix just nods.</p><p>Anakin just wants him to go away so he doesn’t have to finish the rest of this bar, or keep making conversation, but Kix is not going to do that. He takes another bite instead, just to have something to do with himself. He shouldn’t have brought this up because now he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.</p><p>The medic checks his pulse and runs a medscanner over him while Anakin eats. Kix frowns at its readout and gets up, heading to the kitchen area. He hears shards of glass falling from a cabinet when Kix opens it.</p><p>“Careful,” Anakin says belatedly. He can hear a dish clattering and then the sound of water running, so he must not have broken <em>everything</em>. Kix hands him a cup of water when he comes back in.</p><p>“Do you normally keep a bunch of broken glass in your cupboards, sir?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Kix raises an eyebrow. Anakin takes a small sip of water before saying,</p><p>“It could be worse. Once, I blew out the lights in this whole sector of the Temple by accident.”</p><p>“Does that sort of thing happen to you often?”</p><p>Anakin is not sure if he’s asking because he thinks it is an insight into Anakin’s health or because he’s genuinely curious about how the Force works. He’s found that some clones are fascinated by the Force and others are a bit freaked out by it; it’s a spectrum. Kix generally falls on the former end—maybe because he’s gotten to witness the near-miraculous effects of Force healing on a few occasions—Rex on the latter—probably because he’s been on the business end of a Force push one too many times.</p><p>“Define often,” Anakin says. Slips like this probably do happen to him more often than to other Jedi, though it’s generally something one tries to hide if they can. Jedi pride themselves on their control. Anakin isn’t exactly the best at that—maybe it’s because he’s got so much power at his fingertips or because he feels more strongly than he should.</p><p>Kix thinks and then clarifies, “When does it happen to you?”</p><p>“When I’m stressed. Angry. Tired.”</p><p>“Like right now.”</p><p>Anakin just closes his eyes and raises his eyebrows, resigned.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, and it doesn’t come out as steady as he would like. Having their little discussion about the Force, Anakin could almost pretend that Ahsoka isn’t… But mentioning their specific situation means he can’t avoid it anymore.</p><p>“I could give you something, sir,” Kix tries, “to help you sleep.” The words are barely out of his mouth before Anakin is saying,</p><p>“No!”</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“I don’t want to miss—If there’s something—anything that I can do—I need to be able to do it.”</p><p>Anakin thinks that the explanation doesn’t make much sense, but Kix seems to understand what he means. He thinks about what he knows about his medic. Kix hates leaving an injured brother behind, no matter how far gone they are, or how much danger it would put himself in. Anakin wonders if this all isn’t affecting Kix more than he’s showing. Maybe he’s not the only one who can see how wrong this is.</p><p>“Do you believe it? That Ahsoka actually—” Anakin asks. It’s a loaded question. Kix hesitates, but then shakes his head.</p><p>“She always treated us like—she cares about us,” Kix says. Anakin nods. Kix takes a breath to say something else, but then Anakin’s comm goes off. They both jump a little, and Anakin rushes to check it. It’s a video call. From Padmé. He wants to answer it right away, but Kix is here, so he starts to stand up to take it somewhere else. Kix stops him from doing so for the second time that day.</p><p>“If you’re not going to sleep, at least eat and drink and rest for a bit, General. I’ll step out,” he says, with the tone of an order, though not unkindly. The clone collects his helmet and turns to leave.</p><p>“Thank you, Kix” Anakin says, meaning it. He feels a little bit better (which is wrong, he shouldn’t get to feel better, some part of him thinks) and maybe it’s just the food but maybe it’s something else.</p><p>“Of course, sir.”</p><p>And then Kix is gone and Anakin is looking at the holographic face of his wife. She looks stricken.</p><p>“Anakin…” she takes a deep breath, “the courts denied it—all of it.” She presses a hand to her mouth. Anakin shudders. It is only mid-afternoon. They have barely taken any time to consider. Anakin stares at the comm unit. He can feel his face darkening. How could they?</p><p>“Where are you, Anakin?” Padmé asks, “I want to—We should be together.”</p><p>And Anakin dearly, dearly wants Padmé to be there. He needs her. But he’s at the damned Jedi Temple, so she can’t come. He shakes his head.</p><p>“The Temple.”</p><p>“Come to the Senate then, Ani,” she pleads. But he can’t do that either. If he is even allowed to leave here in the first place, he will probably be followed.</p><p>“I can’t. I’m being watched,” he explains, completely unable to keep some of his boundless frustration out of his voice.</p><p>“What are we going to do?” she asks, distressed. In the back of his mind, Anakin is deeply grateful that Padmé is still talking as if, whatever happens, they are going to face it together. Though she is fond of Ahsoka, Padmé doesn’t know her like he does. Nobody knows Ahsoka like he does. A lesser woman might have bought into the lie that Ahsoka is guilty by now. But not Padmé.</p><p>All the strength and righteousness in the world can’t answer her question, though.</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>They are both quiet for a few moments. Then Padmé’s attention is drawn by something outside of the hologram’s range, and she nods.</p><p>“Ani, I have to go, I have a meeting with the Chancellor,” she says. Something sparks in his mind.</p><p>“Padmé—” he says before she can leave, “do you think the Chancellor would—is this something he could use his pardon power for?” Anakin knows it would be a lot to ask, and Padmé looks like she knows it too.</p><p>“Technically he might be able to, but politically—” she grimaces, “the way he was speaking at the trial, I don’t think he would even want to.”</p><p>“I have to try,” he says. Padmé looks pained.</p><p>“Just tell me when you’re leaving so I can catch him in between meetings and I’ll call him,” Anakin says. He thinks his wife would do the asking herself if necessary, no matter the political capital it might cost her, but that doesn’t mean she has to. Representing Ahsoka at the trial has probably cost her some respect already. He needs to do this himself—his own standing with the Chancellor or the Senate is of no consequence to him right now. He can’t imagine a more important cause than this. Anakin doesn’t think his relationship with several people (Jedi) will ever be the same after this: what is losing one more friend, if it means Ahsoka might live?</p><p>“Ok. I love you,” Padmé says.</p><p>“I love you too.”</p><p>And then her image is gone, and Anakin is alone again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The 501st clone boys love Anakin and he loves them back, even though none of them would admit it. I will take this fact to my grave. Also, I love me some Padmé being supportive of Ahsoka and Anakin.</p><p>I can't really find any specific canon evidence about force-bonds/master-padawan bonds existing or that breaking them by dying can be painful, so I guess it's a fanon thing? But I think it's super interesting, that the Force can allow you to be intimate with someone like that, almost like a bit of you is living inside their head. </p><p>The moral dilemma this presents here, however, is so tempting to me, I just had to include it. If you knew someone you loved was going to die, would you cut ties with them to spare yourself the physical and emotional pain? I don't think I would, but I can definitely see it as something a Jedi would be expected to do. So Obi Wan asking Anakin to sever his bond with Ahsoka really just drives another wedge between Anakin and the Jedi Order (and Obi Wan).</p><p>Thank you all for your lovely and insightful comments on chapter 1. Until next time!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anakin never gets to speak to the Chancellor. He spends the next quarter of an hour rehearsing what he is going to say to his friend, trying to remember everything Obi Wan might have ever taught him about political persuasion. He finishes Kix’s ration bar and the cup of water as he does so. The medic is staying close to his quarters, he thinks; in the Force, he feels him and several other clones and what might be a temple guard or two (though they generally shield their presences pretty tightly) also lurking in the hallway. He doesn’t know what Padmé’s meeting was about, and consequently has no idea how long it will take, but he doesn’t find out until much later, because someone else comes to see him.</p>
<p>It is Rex.</p>
<p>Anakin does open the door himself this time. Rex looks a little nervous, and Anakin realizes why when the Captain says,</p>
<p>“You’re wanted in the Council chambers, sir.”</p>
<p>The last thing Anakin wants is to have to go in front of the kriffing Jedi Council, on whom he places at least eighty percent of the blame for starting this whole mess. The other twenty is probably on the Republic’s justice system, or maybe the Separatists because it’s always easy to blame them, but that is more of an abstract concept at the moment. He considers outright refusing—why should the Council exercise any authority over him when they have betrayed him and his padawan so thoroughly? Anakin doesn’t want to make Rex deal with the mess that will cause when it’s not Rex’s fault, which he realizes is probably the reason they sent someone to collect him in the first place. This is not the first, and certainly not the most egregious, instance of the Council using Anakin’s friendships to get him to do what they want.</p>
<p>“Last time I checked, being the Council’s messenger boy wasn’t in your job description,” he says sulkily. Rex looks like he’s preparing himself to have to argue, so Anakin just sighs. The sooner he gets this over with, the sooner he can do something actually useful, like talk to Palpatine.</p>
<p>“They could have just commed me. Let’s go.”</p>
<p>Rex walks next to him, and they’re both silent for the first few hallways they go through. Anakin is still thinking about the Council, though, and ideas that he has pushed to the side since Ahsoka was first accused are coming together.</p>
<p>“Rex,” he says suddenly, “I need to ask you something. It’s a bit personal, and I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable—” Anakin can tell he is already making Rex uncomfortable. His second-in-command is regarding him warily from the corner of his eye, but it’s not like they have never had any personal conversations before. Anakin likes to think that they are friends. He hopes they are.</p>
<p>“Sir?”</p>
<p>“After this is all—” and Anakin almost says <em>after this is all over</em> but he realizes that it will never be over. Once Ahsoka is dead, it can’t be taken back.</p>
<p>“After tomorrow, I don’t think I can be a Jedi anymore,” he admits. Rex’s step falters—almost imperceptibly, but Anakin knows his Captain well.</p>
<p>“Did you know that I’m not even Ahsoka’s legal guardian? She’s a ward of the Jedi order—or she was until they kicked her out and turned her over to the military courts.” Anakin only discovered this last night, reading through legal documents with his wife. It hadn’t really mattered before, but it does now.</p>
<p>“They were supposed to protect her and stand by her and they didn’t. How am I supposed to trust they’ll stand by me? How can I trust them to send us into life-and-death situations every day? I can’t.”</p>
<p>Rex looks concerned and a little lost, which is an unusual look on his typically unflappable and competent Captain.</p>
<p>“Why are you telling me this, sir?”</p>
<p>“The decision to leave—well, it would be almost easy except that I would have to resign my commission in the GAR.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>“I have a duty to you and the rest of the 501<sup>st</sup>. I couldn’t just do this without—” Anakin says.</p>
<p>“You don’t need our permission to do anything, General Skywalker.”</p>
<p>“I know, I just—If I abandon you, I’d be just like the Council.”</p>
<p>Rex pauses, thinking.</p>
<p>“It wouldn’t be the same under a different CO—I won’t lie—you’re the best Jedi I know.”</p>
<p>Anakin is taken aback by the sudden and barefaced praise. He also thinks that if Rex knew what Jedi were <em>supposed</em> to be like, he wouldn’t say that.</p>
<p>“But,” Rex continues, “we were made to fight this war. That doesn’t change whether it’s you or some other Jedi leading us. The boys will be okay.”</p>
<p>Anakin doesn’t think it’s that simple. He has the choice to leave, but what choice do Rex or any of his brothers have? Even if he stays they won’t have that choice. He shakes his head.</p>
<p>“I have the luxury of principle, but you don’t. And the last time I—”</p>
<p>He thinks of Umbara: another time he has failed and let down those he was supposed to protect.</p>
<p>“That wasn’t your fault, sir,” Rex says quietly. Anakin has heard this from his Captain before, but he didn’t believe him then and doesn’t now.</p>
<p>They’ve stopped in front of the elevator that will take them up the Jedi temple’s spire, to the Council antechambers.</p>
<p>“I’ve only ever known you to do what you think is right, General,” Rex says.</p>
<p>They step into the elevator as its doors silently slide open. They stand next to each other and stare at the doors as they close again.</p>
<p>“Would they even let you leave?” Rex asks.</p>
<p>“What?” Anakin hadn’t thought of that. And he wouldn’t have pegged Rex to question the Council’s integrity in such a way, even though Anakin has just done so himself.</p>
<p>“A lot of us aren’t too happy about what they’re doing to Commander Tano either,” Rex admits, answering Anakin’s unspoken incredulity.</p>
<p>“If they tried to stop me, I could put them in a very difficult position,” Anakin says after a beat. He knows he has sway with the Chancellor, and with the media (even if “The Hero With No Fear” is a ridiculously inaccurate title, enough people believe it). He could speak out against the Order. And, if he admits his marriage to Padmé, he can just imagine the philosophical gymnastics the Council would have to go through to justify keeping him. Either to help with the war effort or because he’s the Chosen One and they want to use him.</p>
<p>Rex shifts his weight, and Anakin wonders how much he understands of what that statement implies.</p>
<p>“Even if we can’t do anything, someone should,” says Rex. This gets Anakin to look over at him, caught off guard. It’s uncharacteristic of Rex—or at least the Rex that Anakin met at the beginning of the war—to so blatantly question authority. Then again, this situation has driven them all to extremes.</p>
<p>And, Anakin doesn’t really know what to say to that. Was Rex telling him that he <em>should</em> leave? If that’s true, he doesn’t know whether to be hurt or grateful. He never gets a chance to respond because the elevator has reached its destination, and now there are other people who could overhear.</p>
<p>A lot of people, actually. Several temple guards and clones fill the small space with activity. They’re leading someone from the Council chambers, Anakin thinks. He and Rex press against the wall to let them pass. He cranes his neck to see who it is. As they all push into the elevator, Anakin catches a glimpse of the back of their head. It is Barriss Offee.</p>
<p>
  <em>What? Barriss is a Jedi—a model padawan—why would they treat her this way?</em>
</p>
<p>Anakin is actually offended on her behalf, which he never thought he would feel about Barriss. Even though she was Ahsoka’s friend, her placid obedience still rubbed him the wrong way. Is this about Ahsoka? If it is, it just serves as even more evidence of the Council’s disregard for their own.</p>
<p>He doesn’t have to wait long in the antechamber before the doors are opening and Anakin is ushered into the Council chambers proper. Rex doesn’t follow him. Anakin prepares himself for the familiar sensation of the Council’s scrutiny as he stands trapped, alone in the center of their circle of chairs. He often thinks this is what a spider trapped under a glass would feel like. The watercolor sky and bustling grandeur of Coruscant is on full display on the other side of the tall windows, but it might as well be worlds away.</p>
<p>There are a good number of councilors physically present, which is unusual with the war being as demanding as it is lately. Yoda sits in his chair, as inscrutable as ever, but Anakin thinks the rest of the members are a bit… uneasy. Obi Wan is stroking his beard. He looks troubled.</p>
<p>Anakin’s annoyance with the Council had been superseded by the weight of his conversation with Rex, but it hadn’t dissipated. To say that he is feeling uncharitable towards this group at the moment would be an understatement. He hopes they will be even more uneasy when he leaves.</p>
<p>“Skywalker,” Yoda begins, “Our apologies, we must extend, to you and your Padawan.”</p>
<p>Anakin is rendered speechless. They want to <em>apologize</em>? And then his anger flares up because an apology is so <em>deeply</em> inadequate for what they have done. And Ahsoka isn’t even <em>here</em> to apologize to, because it’s their fault she’s locked up in a cell right now. Before Anakin can open his mouth to express his outrage, Yoda continues,</p>
<p>“Confessed, Padawan Offee has, to the bombing of the Temple.”</p>
<p>This is not what Anakin was expecting. At all. He whips his head back to the doors he just came through, as if he will be able see Barriss through them and she will deny it.</p>
<p>“What? I—Is this some kind of joke?”</p>
<p>“No,” Master Windu says, “She was the one who planted the nanodroids and killed Letta Turmond.”</p>
<p>Anakin works his mouth for a few seconds, but no sound comes out. The idea of Barriss attacking the Jedi Temple is almost as farfetched as the idea of Ahsoka having done it.</p>
<p>“Why?” he finally manages.</p>
<p>“Believes, she does, that working for the dark side in this war, the Jedi are.”</p>
<p>“She tried to frame Ahsoka to cover up her involvement,” Obi Wan adds.</p>
<p>“Why did she confess, then?” Anakin asks. He of all people knows how close she was to pulling it off. He shakes his head to try to get rid of the buzzing sensation he feels. It is confusion, yes, but mostly relief, that clouds his thoughts.</p>
<p>“We don’t know,” says Obi Wan.</p>
<p>“What about Ahsoka?”</p>
<p>“The Republic is dropping all charges against her. Arrangements are being made to bring her here as we speak,” says Mace.</p>
<p>Anakin has to widen his stance to keep from falling over in the tidal wave of relief that washes over him. Or maybe Kix really did sedate him, and this is all a dream.</p>
<p>“Really?” he asks, and it comes out more vulnerable than he meant it to sound.</p>
<p>“Yes, Anakin,” Obi Wan says gently, earnestly trying to make eye contact with Anakin.</p>
<p>“You’re not just telling me this so I won’t—”</p>
<p>“We would not lie to you,” Obi Wan says, sounding a little incredulous.</p>
<p>Anakin gives no response to that. Obi Wan shifts uncomfortably—he must realize the context of what he has just said.</p>
<p>“True, this is, young Skywalker,” Yoda insists, “The order to release her, I have here.”</p>
<p>The Jedi Master produces a datapad and offers it to Anakin, who takes it numbly. He reads it twice quickly. It sounds legitimate, and he recognizes the name of it as one of the few things from his and Padmé’s research that would completely release Ahsoka from blame. They hadn’t been able to use it because they didn’t have nearly strong enough evidence. Anakin blinks at it after he is done reading. He doesn’t think even his dreaming mind could come up with language this technical or a scenario this outlandish. This is <em>true</em>, this is <em>real.</em></p>
<p>“Reinstate your Padawan into the Order, we will,” Yoda says after Anakin returns the datapad.</p>
<p>“We are willing to count this towards her trials for knighthood, if you agree she is ready,” Plo Koon rumbles from behind his mask.</p>
<p>Knighthood? This conversation is not going at all how Anakin expected, and he is reeling. He had expected to have to argue to even convince them of the worth of Ahsoka’s <em>continued existence</em>, and now they are ready to make her a Jedi Knight.</p>
<p>“I—honestly I haven’t really thought much about it.”</p>
<p>He has too much going through his mind to consider whether that statement might reflect badly on him or on Ahsoka before he has said it. Should he even care? Should either of them? But it is the truth—Anakin has mostly been focused on keeping Ahsoka and his men alive lately. He hasn’t had much time to think about their future, and Ahsoka has only been his apprentice for about two years anyways.</p>
<p>“Then meditate on it, you should, until Ahsoka arrives,” Yoda advises. He hears the doors slide open behind him: an unspoken dismissal.</p>
<p>“Yes, Masters,” Anakin says and bows, mostly on reflex.</p>
<p>Rex comes to attention as a shell-shocked Anakin Skywalker emerges from the High Council chambers. Anakin hadn’t really expected him to wait here.</p>
<p>“I heard less yelling than I would have expected, Sir,” Rex says, clearly curious.</p>
<p>When Anakin doesn’t say anything, instead just heading for the elevator, he hastily adds,</p>
<p>“Not that I would have listened.”</p>
<p>“She’s innocent,” Anakin says, ignoring his comments, “they’re letting her go.”</p>
<p>Confusion and hope war on his Captain’s face.</p>
<p>“Sir?”</p>
<p>“The real bomber confessed that Ahsoka had nothing to do with it.”</p>
<p>Rex exhales sharply and then laughs under his breath, “I knew she didn’t do it,” he says.</p>
<p>Anakin wants to do that too, but he is still troubled as they step inside the elevator. This doesn’t erase what the Council was willing to allow, and Ahsoka will be upset when she learns that Barriss did this, and—knighthood? His thoughts race.</p>
<p>“I’ll tell the men,” Rex offers. Anakin nods absentmindedly, but what Rex says next gets his attention because it is what Anakin is thinking too.</p>
<p>“Are you still going to—”</p>
<p>“It depends on Ahsoka, I guess,” Anakin replies, “If she wants to stay then I won’t leave her. If she can forgive them, then I should too, right?”</p>
<p>Even as the words leave his mouth, he is dubious. If Ahsoka decides to let go of what the Council did to her, can he really do the same? Maybe not, but he feels sure he could at least stay if she asked him to. Rex doesn’t answer him—it’s mostly a rhetorical question anyways.</p>
<p>They part ways at the bottom of the spire. Anakin just stands there for a moment, trying to decide where to go. They’ll send him a message when Ahsoka arrives, but he doesn’t want to be too far away when that happens. He wonders if they’ll want to speak to her alone first. He eventually heads for the room of a thousand fountains and settles himself beside a flowing stream. Focusing on the constant rushing of water here helps him think, in the absence of a mechanical project or lightsaber practice to occupy his body. It reflects the frenetic energy he often feels inside himself—soothes the itch of inaction that he would feel if he tried to meditate somewhere quieter.</p>
<p><em>Knighthood.</em> His first instinct is to tell them no. He’s not ready for Ahsoka to leave him yet—just look at how well he took the prospect of her being taken away from him. She could die still: on the battlefield, leading her own troops without him there to look out for her. The thought of her not being with him, where he is able to protect her, sends tendrils of icy cold up his spine to grip his heart.</p>
<p><em>This is not about you</em>, Obi Wan’s voice whispers in his mind, traitorously.</p>
<p>It’s right. Is Ahsoka ready? What will be needed of her, as a Jedi Knight? As a General? Skill, control, critical thinking, patience, grace under pressure. She has all of these things. And, he knows that Ahsoka wants to become a knight (or, at least, she did). It should be what he wants too, should have been his one goal from the very beginning. He mentally berates himself. As her master, everything he does with her should be with the goal of knighthood in mind, but he realizes he hardly spares it a second thought most of the time. He has been selfish. Now, though, he’s giving it more than just a second thought.</p>
<p>Even though Ahsoka may be competent, she is also so very young. Younger than he was, even, and he knows some still have reservations about whether he should have been knighted. He’d always dismissed those doubts out of hand: he’d passed his trials, after all. It’s different when it’s Ahsoka, though. It will be a lot of responsibility, especially now with their forces stretched so thin. He doesn’t want to burden her with that. She has plenty of other burdens as a Commander already, some of them out of his control, and he has tried to prepare her to shoulder them as best he can. She handles it well, but he wishes she didn’t have to.</p>
<p>He waffles between two answers for he doesn’t know how long. She is capable, and he doesn’t want to hold her back like he sometimes feels Obi Wan holds him back. On the other hand, he wants nothing more than to protect her.</p>
<p>A dark part of his mind murmurs that what she needs is to be free of him<em>.</em> He still believes what he said to Obi Wan, that it’s his fault the Council doesn’t trust her. Maybe they’ll start to if she is not so tied to him. In the moment, he feels the overwhelming weight of his own fate, and wants her to be safe from being crushed by it too. It scares him, the influence he knows he can have on people who get too close. He thinks of his mother, willing to send him away while she stayed trapped under Watto’s thumb. Of Padmé and the prisoner trade for General Grievous— he doesn’t think she would have done it if it had been someone else. Of the beings on Mortis, using Obi Wan’s and Ahsoka’s lives to test him. Of the way the clones and Padmé were afraid of him.</p>
<p>He is terrified of being alone yet terrified of what will happen if he is not.</p>
<p>Maybe this indecision will be for nothing. She might feel the same way he does about being a Jedi. He felt her disappointment in the Council. It will be more her decision than his. She should have that choice and be free to make it.</p>
<p>Then, his comm is beeping and he is being summoned back to the Council. He leaves the gurgling water and the room of a thousand fountains behind.</p>
<p>Ahsoka isn’t quite there yet when he enters the Council room. They’re not in a formal meeting, and several of them, including Obi Wan, are standing together in the middle of the room. Obi Wan hands Anakin Ahsoka’s string of padawan beads, taken when they judged her. They ask him if he thinks she is ready. He tells them to offer her knighthood.</p>
<p>Is this what mom felt like, all those years ago? He’ll never get to ask.</p>
<p>Of course, the Council misses the fact that he didn’t answer the same question as the one they asked. She <em>is</em> ready, but <em>he </em>isn’t. They look pleasantly surprised though, which almost makes him want to take it back. He doesn’t want to give them the satisfaction.</p>
<p>He tells her that the Council is asking her back. He doesn’t say whether <em>he</em> is.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry master, but I’m not coming back,” Ahsoka says and closes his hand around the string of beads. He sees that her eyes are big and sad: she thinks she’s hurting him by doing this, she thinks she’s leaving him. But in that moment, Anakin has made up his mind to follow her. He hopes Rex and the 501<sup>st</sup> can forgive him.</p>
<p>Ahsoka turns and walks away, hugging herself. Anakin is already reaching for the lightsaber on his belt. He turns and presses its familiar shape into the hands of Obi Wan, who looks at him, stunned.</p>
<p>“Ahsoka’s right,” Anakin says forcefully, “She doesn’t want to come back to an Order that is willing to leave her to die for something she didn’t do. And I’m not willing to stay in it, either. If you actually cared about me or her beyond our ability to fight your war—if you actually cared about the principles you say you uphold, if you trusted us—this wouldn’t have happened. If this is what being a Jedi is,” he gestures to the assembled members of the Council, “I don’t want to be one anymore.”</p>
<p>“Anakin—” Obi Wan interrupts.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, Master, but you can’t change my mind.”</p>
<p>And, although this is such a huge thing he is doing, and there is a not insignificant part of him that feels bad for doing this to Obi Wan, even though he is on the Council and therefore part of the problem, Anakin allows himself to feel a little smug as he says to Yoda and Windu,</p>
<p>“Go find yourself another Chosen One. I hope you treat them better than you treated me or my Padawan.”</p>
<p>Then Anakin is turning and walking away. He picks up his pace and starts to jog to catch Ahsoka. A smile is growing on his face. He’s not quite foolish enough to think that this decision will never bother him—that he’ll never wonder whether he has done the right thing. But for now, this feels right. He feels free. He catches up to her as she’s walking down the front steps.</p>
<p>“Ahsoka, wait!” he calls. She stops. He goes down the stairs a few steps further than her and turns around so he’s looking slightly up at her. Her expression quickly morphs into a dumbfounded one as she sees his smile.</p>
<p>“Master, I—”</p>
<p>“So where to, Ahsoka?” he interrupts her jovially. She winces.</p>
<p>“You don’t understand, I’m not coming back—" then she notices that he doesn’t have his lightsaber on his belt and gasps,</p>
<p>“Your lightsaber!” He can see realization dawning in her eyes, “Anakin, you didn’t—"</p>
<p>“I did, Ahsoka,” he says softly, turning serious.</p>
<p>“For me?” she breathes.</p>
<p>Anakin tilts his head. He left <em>because</em> of her, and he would do anything for her, but those aren’t the same thing as leaving the Order <em>for</em> her.</p>
<p>“Because of what they did to you, yes. And—”</p>
<p>Here is the part where he is most vulnerable. He can only hope that she will still want what he wants.</p>
<p>“I do hope that we can still be—” he searches for a word to describe what they are to each other, and he finds that he can’t, so he settles on, “—friends, and that you’ll let me be a part of your life, but I didn’t leave because I think you can’t be on your own.”</p>
<p>“I need to figure out who I am now that I’m not a Jedi, and I thought that meant without—”</p>
<p>She doesn’t say <em>without you</em>, but Anakin knows it’s what she means. He looks up at the Coruscanti sky instead of meeting her gaze and tries not to be hurt by that. She doesn’t deserve to think that she’s hurting him, not when she’s just trying to do what’s best for her. Ahsoka is leaving everything she thought she had behind—she’s entitled to want to reevaluate herself—but it’s not quite the same for him. As Ahsoka is walking away from everything, Anakin has something to go towards.</p>
<p>“I know, Ahsoka.” He says haltingly.</p>
<p>“Anakin, I—”</p>
<p>He’s had enough of these emotional conversations for today.</p>
<p>“We don’t have to figure everything out today, but I thought you might at least want to come to Padmé’s with me.”</p>
<p>Her eyes narrow at his change of subject.</p>
<p>“Unless you have somewhere else to stay lined up for tonight?” Anakin asks. He knows that they can’t be done talking about what they are to each other, but he doesn’t think he can be blamed for wanting things to be happy, or at least okay, for one night. Luckily, Ahsoka accepts his diversion,</p>
<p>“Padmé, huh?”</p>
<p>“Well, my <em>wife </em>wouldn’t be very happy with me if I didn’t tell her what happened first thing,”</p>
<p>“Wait a second—wife?!”</p>
<p>“Yep,” Anakin says, popping the p. He didn’t expect how <em>good</em> it would feel to finally tell someone this. He steps up next to Ahsoka and slings an arm casually around her shoulders. Ahsoka is still staring at him, incredulous and maybe looking little betrayed.</p>
<p>“You <em>married </em>Senator Amidala? Why didn’t you tell me?”</p>
<p>“I was <em>trying</em> not to be a terrible role model.”</p>
<p>Ahsoka considers this for a moment. After a few beats, he can feel her shoulders relax.</p>
<p>“You were still kinda a terrible role model,” she teases.</p>
<p>He missed this, even though it hasn’t been that long.</p>
<p>
  <em>Fighter crashed. I saved the day. You’re welcome.</em>
</p>
<p>It seems like forever ago. So much has changed. They can’t go back.</p>
<p>“Well, now I can stop pretending.”</p>
<p>“Anything else you’ve been lying about?” she says, though it’s in mostly good humor.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t <em>lying</em>, you just never asked!” Anakin pretends to defend himself.</p>
<p>“Why would I have asked?” she answers rhetorically.</p>
<p>Anakin smirks and starts down the steps, dragging Ahsoka good-naturedly along with him. He shrugs with the arm that is not around her.</p>
<p>“And <em>you</em> say I’m not any good at stealth missions.”</p>
<p>Ahsoka scoffs.</p>
<p>“Don’t get me wrong, I knew there was something going on. You’re not <em>that</em> good.”</p>
<p>“In all seriousness,” he says as they reach the bottom of the steps and he turns to face her again, “you should come see her. She’s been really worried.”</p>
<p>Ahsoka’s face softens, “Okay. And I guess you should introduce me <em>properly</em> to <em>your wife</em>.”</p>
<p>She still says the last part with a touch of incredulity.</p>
<p>Anakin grabs her hand and leads her away from the Temple. He hasn’t made so much physical contact with Ahsoka in the past several <em>months</em> as he has in the past day. It’s like he needs to reassure himself that she’s really <em>here</em>—that she won’t be taken away from him. Ahsoka might be feeling the same way, because she stays close to Anakin, letting him guide her through the crowded city streets and towards home.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Ok, so I totally chickened out of killing Ahsoka. :) I love her too much and canon is painful enough already to not give her a happy ending with Anakin.</p>
<p>I do have an alternate ending where she dies all planned out and everything. That was the original intention of this story. Maybe I'll post it as something separate later. I also started writing a little scene/epilogue with Padmé, but then I decided this was a better way to end things.</p>
<p>This AU is taking up way too much space in my head...</p>
<p>Thank you so much for reading and for your comments! They make me so happy!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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